by Harold Coyle
"But then, when no one was looking, the politicians went back to their big houses and the programs were forgotten. The only thing that did not change was the faces of the people. In their eyes, you could see the flame of hope slowly dying, drowned by the harsh reality of survival in modern Mexico."
Jan, momentarily caught off guard by Guajardo's response, paused.
After thirty minutes of simple banter and short, crisp answers, she had finally gotten the colonel to react. Sensing it was time, she seized the mood and drove on. "So, you and your fellow colonels decided that you had to act. But I wonder, was it necessary to eliminate the entire government and the leadership of the PRI, as well as the other political parties? Surely there was no-need to turn on the PAN and the PSUM. If anything, wouldn't they have been better as allies, not rivals, in your efforts to establish a new government?"
Again Guajardo paused before answering. He continued to look into Jan Fields's eyes while he thought. She was attempting to provoke him.
It was as if she had driven a knife into him and was slowly twisting it.
Well, he thought, if you want a reaction, you shall have one. But Guajardo, ever the professional soldier, sought to maintain control.
' "The PRI has rooted itself throughout our nation like a great cancer. It is everywhere, it touches everything and everyone. And everyone it touches it infects. For decades, men like my father struggled to cure the cancer from within. He served the party well, doing what was asked in the belief that he was doing something important for Mexico. And all the while, he closed his eyes to the graft, the corruption, the fixed elections, the misappropriation of funds. I would hear him at night telling my mother that someday, when he had the power, he would do what was right. He would come forth, like the knight on the white horse, and change everything."
Pausing for a moment, Guajardo shifted in his seat, turning his head to look up at the great mural depicting the heroes of the first revolution.
Without looking back at Jan, he continued. "I think, in his heart, he really believed he was doing what was right. Just like the politicians in the PAN and PSUM, I truly believe he was trying as hard as he could. But the cancer had seized him. Its roots slowly wrapped themselves about him, squeezing every trace of compassion out of him. By the time he died, he was like a man who had stared at the sun too long, he was blind to the reality of the world around him, a reality that threatens to destroy everything that the Revolution stands for.''
"Is that how you see yourself, Colonel, a savior on a white horse, coming forward to correct all the ills of Mexico by execution and terror?''
Guajardo could feel the blood rush to his head. He snapped his entire body about and faced the American female. For a moment, he eyed Jan Fields, fighting hard to maintain his composure. What arrogance, he thought. How can she, sitting here, dressed in clothes and shoes that cost her more money than the average family in Mexico made in half a year, understand what we are trying to do? What does she know of poverty, of crushed dreams and stillborn hopes? How dare she come into my country and impose her morals on our people when she has no idea what it means to be a Mexican?
For the longest time, Jan watched as Guajardo glared at her. Perhaps, she thought, she had gone too far.
As if in response to Jan's thoughts, Guajardo stood up, coming to a ramrod straight position of attention in front of Jan. There was a moment of silence as everyone waited for Guajardo to announce that the interview was over. Instead, Guajardo summoned, with a slight motion of his hand, a captain who had been patiently waiting in the background.
As the captain came forward, Jan looked at her crew. Ted the cameraman, nicknamed Theodore because of the round wire-rimmed glasses he wore, not seeing any cues from Jan, had his eye glued to the camera as he continued to shoot. Joe Bob, her sound tech and the only native Texan in the crew, looked at Jan, shaking his head. Also at a loss, Jan shrugged her shoulders and threw her hands out, palms up. Only Juan, standing against the wall, was visibly upset. Like a barefooted man on a hot beach, he nervously moved and shuffled his feet about, his eyes jumping from the spot where Guajardo stood conferring with the captain to the door at the far end of the room. To Jan, it appeared as if Juan were mentally measuring the distance he would have to run if something happened.
Did he know something, Jan thought, that we didn't? Or was he just overreacting? For the first time, Jan began to take the situation seriously, reminding herself that the man standing in front of her had something to do with a revolution that had begun by killing the same leaders he had, as a soldier, pledged fidelity to.
The clicking of the captain's heels as he turned and walked away caused Jan to turn back and face Guajardo. In a moment, he had changed.
His face was transformed, his eyes, his whole attitude had changed. The calm, relaxed man in the overstuffed chair was now towering over her.
From her chair, she looked up at him. In his brown uniform, he looked like a great grizzly bear. The soft brown eyes that had been so disarming were now dark, vacant, and piercing. Whether he intended to be intimidating didn't matter as far as Jan was concerned; she was duly intimidated, though she tried not to show it.
"Ms. Fields, a minute ago you asked me what finally drove me to turn against my government and the political system that kept it in power.
Come, I will show you." Without waiting for an acknowledgment, Guajardo turned and left the room.
The colonel's announcement had been an order, plain and simple.
Although she had no idea where he was going to take them, Jan knew she had hit a nerve and that whatever he was going to show them could only enhance the material they had collected during the interview. Without hesitation, she was up out of her seat and scurrying across the floor, leaving Ted and Joe Bob scrambling to grab cases and cables. Juan, seizing the confusion of the moment, deciding that he had greater need of his life and liberty than of double pay, quickly and quietly slipped away through the door he had been eyeing.
With Colonel Guajardo leading, Jan and her crew trotted through the corridors and down the grand staircases, in an effort to match the colonel's great strides. None of them noticed that Juan was not with them.
Even when they walked into the great courtyard where a military sedan and the rental van Jan's small crew was using sat waiting with doors open and engines already running. Neither Jan nor Joe Bob, the driver, thought to ask how or by whom the van had been moved. Such details weren't important at that moment.
What was important was where they were going and what the colonel wanted them to see. Pausing at the open side door, Jan all but shoved Ted and Joe Bob in, shouting, "Go, go, go," as they passed her. As soon as Joe Bob was clear, Jan turned to follow, but was held back by a hand on her arm. Turning, she saw that the captain Guajardo had talked to was holding her. With a slight smile, he informed her that Colonel Guajardo would like her to come with him in the sedan. Caught off guard, Jan looked back to Joe Bob, noticing for the first time that there was a soldier in the van's driver's seat.
In an instant, Jan realized that she was no longer in control of the situation. Her first reaction was to turn on the captain and explain that she had to stay with the rest of the crew. That, however, quickly passed from her mind when she noticed for the first time that Juan was not with them.
Instead of defiance, Jan decided to stall in an effort to gain some time to assess the situation..
''Juan, my fixer, is not here yet. We must wait."
The captain, still smiling and still holding her arm with a gentle but firm grip, simply shook his head. "I am sorry, Ms. Fields. Your man has already left. The colonel is quite busy and we must leave, now."
"I assume the man you have driving our van knows where we are going."
The captain nodded his head. "He is a very good man. The van will follow. Please, Ms. Fields, we must go. The colonel is waiting." With that, he gave a slight tug on Jan's arm, a tug she initially resisted.
Wanting the last word, if for
no other reason than to show that she was going of her own free will, Jan called to Joe Bob and Ted. "I'll be with the colonel. Keep the camera ready and roll on anything that might be of interest."
Looking at Jan, Joe Bob wondered if she meant that as a threat to the captain, reminding him that they were filming in case he had evil intent, or if she was just giving simple directions. Regardless of what she meant, Joe Bob began to regret leaving his .357 Magnum back home in Austin.
There ain't nothin' more pathetic, he thought, than an unarmed cowboy surrounded by a bunch of pissed-off greasers. "Okay, Miss Fields, we'll be right behind you." Not that we can do squat, he thought.
Guiding her around the van, the captain led Jan to the sedan where Colonel Guajardo waited in the backseat. Jan had hoped to sit up front, preferring to have some distance and a nice seat back between her and the colonel. But the captain took her to the rear door, which he closed behind her with a quick, crisp slam.
Guajardo, without a word, looked over to Jan while she settled herself.
His cold, hard expression hadn't changed. Even when she smiled and told him she was ready, Guajardo said nothing to her, greeting her announcement with a slight nod. Turning to the driver, Guajardo rattled off instructions in Spanish.
To Jan's surprise, instead of a simple nod or si, the driver suddenly stiffened. In the rearview mirror, she could see an expression of shock on his face. The order the colonel had given had certainly upset him, a fact that did nothing to calm the tightness Jan began to feel growing in the pit of her stomach. Moving only her eyes, Jan glanced back and forth between Guajardo and the driver.
When Corporal Fares, the driver, failed to respond to his order, Guajardo leaned forward and repeated it. Fares, his face now contorted with an expression that reminded Jan of the same frightened look Juan had had, whispered what sounded like a hesitant plea in response to Guajardo's second order.
In a flash, Guajardo raised his right hand, made a fist, and pounded his right thigh with it as he hissed his order for a third time. Choking out a
"Si" that was barely audible, Corporal Fares mechanically released the parking brake, shifted the sedan into gear, and began to drive. Satisfied, Guajardo eased back into his seat, not bothering to look at Jan, who was trying to sink into her corner as far as she could.
Once out of the courtyard and on the streets, Jan did her best to avoid attracting Guajardo's attention. Looking out the window, she tried to suppress the fear that was gnawing away at her. Though she had been in difficult spots before, she had never been the focus of attention as she was now. Before, she had always been the casual observer, able to keep herself apart from the event she was reporting or the person being interviewed.
What was happening now was totally out of control. Knowing that she had put herself and her crew into such a situation so willingly and without weighing all the consequences didn't do anything to assist her efforts to calm down and collect her thoughts.
And the presence of Colonel Guajardo was also troubling. Even though she kept her face turned to her window, Jan could sense his presence. In the large room of the Palacio Nacional where they had conducted the interview, she had noticed mud on Guajardo's boots and traces of dirt and soot on his uniform. Now, in the confines of the car, Jan noted the unusual.mixture of odors that permeated Guajardo's uniform.
Without looking at the colonel, Jan began trying to determine what he had been up to by analyzing the scents that emanated from him. The dominant odor was that of a man who had been very active and either not taken the time or hadn't had the opportunity to shower. Jan was familiar with the musky smell of masculine sweat. Her lover, Scott Dixon, who was a lieutenant colonel in the American Army, usually smelled like that when he came back from a field exercise. Guajardo had another smell to him that often permeated Scott's field gear, the odor of hydraulic fluids.
As the operations officer of the 16th Armored Division, Scott often used a helicopter. So it was not uncommon for him to smell like one after a field problem. A third scent, fainter than the others, yet quite distinct, reminded Jan of burned flesh. The question of how Guajardo had managed to pick up that odor intrigued her while, at the same time, it brought her back to the realization that the man sitting next to her was no soapbox politician. The power he held was the result of direct and brutal action.
For a brief second, Jan felt the urge to look at Guajardo's hands to see if there was still blood on them. She quickly dismissed that thought, however.
After all, modern man had progressed a long way from the Old Testament, becoming quite adept at washing hands.
Jan began to concentrate on the scenes that flashed by her window.
Without her noticing it, they had passed from the almost deserted streets of the center of the city to a residential and shopping district crowded with cars, trucks, people, shops, small stands and stalls. Outside, on the street, shoppers, workers, vendors, and beggars jostled each other as they went about their daily business as if nothing had changed in Mexico. Jan sat up when she realized this and began to look for the soldiers that had been so evident in the center city. She saw none. She didn't even see any police.
For all practical purposes, whatever was happening with the government had, so far, had no effect on these people.
When the sedan reached an intersection and stopped for a light, a young man ran out from the curb and came up to Jan's window. He looked at her, smiled, and turned his head. Puzzled, Jan wondered if he was a beggar or peddler. Then, without warning, as he held a lighter inches from his face, he spit out a ball of flame from his mouth.
The sudden feat of the fire-breathing man startled Jan, causing her to jump backward, bumping Guajardo in the process. Guajardo, who had been lost deep in thought as he looked out his window, turned to see what had startled Jan. The fire-breather, finished with his act, had turned back to wait for his reward. Only then did he notice that Jan was seated next to a colonel of the Mexican Army. Slowly, the fire-breather's face turned from a broad smile to a quizzical frown. Still, the man stood there, not moving. He was still staring at Jan and Guajardo, as if in a daze, until the light turned and the sedan pulled away.
Suddenly realizing that she was leaning against the colonel, Jan sat up straight and moved back to her side of the seat, running her hand through her hair. As she began to regain her composure, she glanced over at Guajardo. He was looking at her.
Seeing that he was studying her, waiting for her next action, Jan faced Guajardo. "I'm so sorry, Colonel. I wasn't expecting that. He caught me off guard."
"They are called tragafuegos, our slang for fire-breathers."
"Why do they do that? I mean, isn't it dangerous?"
Guajardo looked at Jan and let out a cynical laugh. "To live, my dear Ms. Fields. They do what is necessary to live. On a good day, a tragafuego can make eight or nine thousand pesos."
Doing some quick mental math, Jan figured how much nine thousand pesos was in dollars. Guajardo watched as she did so, smirking when Jan's expression turned from a blank to a look of surprise. "But that's only a little more than three U.S. dollars."
With a self-satisfied look on his face, Guajardo nodded. "Yes, somewhat better than the average minimum wage."
"But it is dangerous. It must be easy to burn himself."
Realizing that he had her, Guajardo played with her. "Oh, if they are careful, and use diesel instead of gasoline or cooking oil, they do well."
As he talked, Jan's face showed signs of surprise. In a rather nonchalant manner, Guajardo continued to drive his point home. "The problem is not the burns. They can heal. What does not heal is the damage the tragafuegos do to their health. The first thing they lose is their sense of taste. The petroleum products, regardless of what they use, are corrosive.
They eat at the human tissue. Eventually, the tragafuegos lose all feeling in their mouth, followed by their teeth." Then, as an afterthought, he added, lightly, "And of course, ulcers on the tongue are not at all unusual."
Jan's
expression was slowly turning to disgust. "That, however, is only the beginning, Ms. Fields. The worst is the brain damage. The speech becomes slurred as they become brain dead, unable to fend for themselves. The process is slow, taking eight to ten years. Eventually, they will simply disappear, their places on the streetcorners taken by younger men who are still able to perform."
Jan was becoming uncomfortable. In part Guajardo knew that it was because she was no longer in control. Like most Americans, Jan was used to having things her way. That she couldn't, bothered her. Even more disturbing, though, was the fact that she no longer had the option to pick those things that fit neatly with her preconceived ideas and images. She had not been ready, or willing, to face the reality of Mexico. That face, one easily ignored, was not pleasing to her. Guajardo could see this and was quite pleased. The trip was paying off. "And what, Colonel, is the government doing? Aren't there social programs, or welfare, or something better than that? Doesn't he know what he is doing?"
Turning his face away from Jan, he looked out the window as he answered. "Yes, Ms. Fields, he knows." Then, looking back to her, his eyes narrowed. "But he is a man, a proud man. What you just saw was the result of failed or sham programs that the former government used to justify its existence. I have no doubt that somewhere along the line, a politician or social worker arranged a mediocre job for the tragafuego that we saw. And no doubt, the tragafuego worked at it until the funds ran out or the program closed down after the politician was re-elected. As for welfare, I shouldn't need to remind you that we are a proud people. Your North American ideas of welfare serve only to break the spirit. That man, the tragafuego, would rather die a slow and miserable death than lose his pride."
No sooner had Guajardo said that than the sedan stopped. Jan turned to see where they were. She had been so absorbed in her conversation that she had not noticed they had driven into an area that was little better than a shantytown. The sudden transition, from the clean, broad boulevards of the city center to the squalor of this slum of Mexico City, was unsettling to Jan. She was not ready to deal with this. In her travels, she had been in such ghettos before. Still, she never grew used to them. She had a great deal of difficulty accepting that people had to live in such conditions, and that there was nothing she could do to change that. Whenever she knew she would need to go into a ghetto or into a place like this, it took her days to condition herself to deal with the despair, filth, and poverty she knew she would see. She had not been able to prepare herself for this trip, and it threw her mentally and emotionally off balance, a condition she was struggling to correct as Guajardo prepared to leave the safety of the sedan.